Gabriel Simungala
Biographic Data
| ID | 307670 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Gabriel Simungala |
| GIVEN NAMES | Gabriel |
| FAMILY NAME | Simungala |
| SIGNATURE | SIMUNGALA G |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of the Western Cape |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5751-8191 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 13 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Monuments in linguistic landscapes and the semiotics of public memory in northern Zambia
This study interrogates the Mbala War Memorial, a monument erected to commemorate the role of Africans in the First World War in northern Zambia. It explores how visible language, space, location, and monument design communicate deeper and often unspoken meanings about spaces of public memory. From this vantage point, monuments in linguistic landscapes can be examined to uncover underlying power dynamics that influence public memory. Thus, the st…
The Resemiotisation and Intertextuality of Multimodal Discourses in Linguistic Landscape of Public Service Vehicles in Lusaka, Zambia
Using resemiotisation and intertextuality as analytical tools in the broader theoretical conexts of linguistic landscapes and semiotic studies, this article accounts for the diverse and heavily saturated multimodal discourses emplaced on public service vehicles in Lusaka, Zambia (South-Central Africa). As its locus, the study wishes to to unearth the textual and sociocultural sources of emplaced discourses privileging local materialities, agency,…
Social Media as an Online Linguistic Landscape: An Appraisal of Lexical Creativity During a Global Pandemic
In this paper, we examine the Facebook platform as an online linguistic landscape that allows for language display rarely seen in physical spaces to showcase social media users’ lexical creativity and innovation. Using the period of the Covid-19 global pandemic, we show social media users’ lexical creativity and innovation in online discourses. Predicated on two interlinked objectives, we first attempt to account for the form and structure of lex…
Translanguaging spaces as marketing strategies in the linguistic landscapes of Zambia
We use advertising billboards and posters of three mobile telecom giants to spotlight translanguaging spaces as marketing strategies in the multilingual and multicultural landscapes of Zambia (south-central Africa). We argue that telecommunications giants deploy, in their marketing discourses, an assemblage of various semiotic resources on translanguaging spaces. Consequently, we show that this occasions a breakdown of language ideologies and blu…
Linguistic Landscapes and Dominant Language Constellations: The Multilingual Behaviour of Minoritised Migrant Populations in Lusaka, Zambia
Within the broader theoretical and methodological contexts of linguistic landscapes, where language(s) displayed and used in public spaces serve as analytic lenses, this paper draws on the public spaces of Bauleni township, a peri-urban community of Lusaka, Zambia (South-Central Africa) to describe the multilingual behaviour of migrant populations. Focusing on the presence (and visibility) of Mambwe-Namwanga, two minoritised language groups in Za…
Names of public memory spaces as sites of coloniality, cultural erasure, and downscaling in linguistic landscapes of Northern Zambia
Social media discourses as multimodal assemblages
The social semiotics of Mambwe clan names and praises
The study explores the clan names and praises of the Mambwe-speaking people of Northern Zambia from a social semiotics perspective. Specifically drawing on the concept of semiotic assemblages, it considers the names and praises as more than just linguistic resources but as meaning-making collections that contribute to the collective self-representation of the Mambwe people. The assembled expressions reflect their worldviews, sociocultural narrati…
Campus repertoires: Interrogating Semiotic Assemblages, Economy, and Creativity
Framed within the broader theoretical context of social semiotics, we attempt to show how university students communicate using a variety of unique means, in particular social contexts. We privilege Pennycook and Otsuji's semiotic assemblages, Jimaima and Simungala's semiotic creativity, and the notion of semiotic economy as critical ingredients that conspire to give rise to the unique and complex coinages and innovations constituting students' r…
Sentential and proverbial morphological structures of Christian theonyms in Bemba
Drawing on Bemba, a Bantu language primarily spoken in northern Zambia, we interrogate the Christian theonyms to account for their complex morphological structures, while highlighting the wealth of information on the Bemba society and their sociocultural environment. For data, semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, and document analysis were employed. Thus, the article highlights two morphological structures, one being a sentential …
The names of the supreme being in Bemba: Some critical morphological insights
In this article, we use lexical morphology to account for names of the supreme being in Bemba, a Bantu language spoken in Zambia as rendered by various translators in the Christian holy book, the Bible. Motivated by the agglutinative nature of the Bemba language in which lexical items are built out of distinctly identifiable sub-parts carrying specific meanings and functions, we segment morphemes of theonyms to unravel their meanings that are cou…
Legitimization and recontextualization of languages: The imbalance of powers in a multilingual landscape
We use the uneven distribution of languages in the public spaces of the University of Zambia and the voices and narratives that emerge to argue for legitimization and recontextualization as critical components in the presence and contestations of languages. Using data from interviews and photographs of signage in place, we show legitimization of foreign languages in which English, Japanese, and Chinese forge a place of linguistic contestation and…
Indigenous Languages in an Online Space: Translanguaging for Visibilisation of Multilingualism and Multisemiotic Modes
Drawing on the notion of translanguaging, we show how Facebook actors enact and sustain the use of a variety of Zambia’s indigenous languages alongside the English language. We conceive of Facebook as an online semiotic/linguistic landscape that occasions opportunities for language display through status updates and subsequent comments that draw on English and selected Zambian indigenous languages (Tonga, Bemba, and Nyanja) in the most unpredicta…
Communicative Practices from the Margins: The Multilingual and Multicultural Repertoires on University Spaces
We draw from the meaning-making practices on the margins, the communicative repertoires of the multilingual and multicultural students at two Southern African universities: the University of Zambia in Lusaka, Zambia; and the University of Malawi in Zomba, Malawi. As our locus, we are interested in the unique linguistic/semiotic coinages which constitute the students' linguistic repertoires as multilingual innovations amenable to placemaking. In a…
Sociocultural narratives and the anthropomorphic power of agency in a semiotic landscape
We take the conflation of space, time and the sociopolitical ideology in the newly independent Zambia as a transformative semiotic capacity predicated on notions of resemiotisation and metamorphosis of artefacts that are seen through the naming and names of hostels at the University of Zambia (UNZA). Borrowing from theories of semiotic assemblages and multilingual memory, the article seeks to show how Kaunda’s United Independence Party and the go…
Towards an appreciation of individual positionality and the global-local interface: Facebook Actorhood in Zambia
Using data from Zambian Facebook platforms, we argue for the complex intersectionality of the global-local semiotic assemblages for the production and consumption of a contested and unpredictable virtual landscape. While ‘glocality’ is a by-product of an on-going sociolinguistics of globalization, and that the local remains an active partner in the (co-)creation of glocality, the paper sees the virtual platform as a semiotic canvas on which indiv…
Multilingual Realities of Language Contact at the University of Zambia
In this article, we examine the multilingual realities of language contact at the University of Zambia. Using an ethnographic research design, we observe the dynamics of the students' language practices both in the physical and on the online landscape. As our locus, we use a physical conversation and Facebook narratives in which students drew on English and Bemba to illustrate instances of blending and mixing as multilingual practices arising fro…
Multilingual Realities of Language Contact at the University of Zambia
In this article, we examine the multilingual realities of language contact at the University of Zambia. Using an ethnographic research design, we observe the dynamics of the students' language practices both in the physical and on the online landscape. As our locus, we use a physical conversation and Facebook narratives in which students drew on English and Bemba to illustrate instances of blending and mixing as multilingual practices arising fro…
Communicative Practices from the Margins: The Multilingual and Multicultural Repertoires on University Spaces
We draw from the meaning-making practices on the margins, the communicative repertoires of the multilingual and multicultural students at two Southern African universities: the University of Zambia in Lusaka, Zambia; and the University of Malawi in Zomba, Malawi. As our locus, we are interested in the unique linguistic/semiotic coinages which constitute the students' linguistic repertoires as multilingual innovations amenable to placemaking. In a…
Social media discourses as multimodal assemblages
Towards an appreciation of individual positionality and the global-local interface: Facebook Actorhood in Zambia
Using data from Zambian Facebook platforms, we argue for the complex intersectionality of the global-local semiotic assemblages for the production and consumption of a contested and unpredictable virtual landscape. While ‘glocality’ is a by-product of an on-going sociolinguistics of globalization, and that the local remains an active partner in the (co-)creation of glocality, the paper sees the virtual platform as a semiotic canvas on which indiv…
Campus repertoires: Interrogating Semiotic Assemblages, Economy, and Creativity
Framed within the broader theoretical context of social semiotics, we attempt to show how university students communicate using a variety of unique means, in particular social contexts. We privilege Pennycook and Otsuji's semiotic assemblages, Jimaima and Simungala's semiotic creativity, and the notion of semiotic economy as critical ingredients that conspire to give rise to the unique and complex coinages and innovations constituting students' r…
Sociocultural narratives and the anthropomorphic power of agency in a semiotic landscape
We take the conflation of space, time and the sociopolitical ideology in the newly independent Zambia as a transformative semiotic capacity predicated on notions of resemiotisation and metamorphosis of artefacts that are seen through the naming and names of hostels at the University of Zambia (UNZA). Borrowing from theories of semiotic assemblages and multilingual memory, the article seeks to show how Kaunda’s United Independence Party and the go…
Towards an appreciation of individual positionality and the global-local interface: Facebook Actorhood in Zambia
Using data from Zambian Facebook platforms, we argue for the complex intersectionality of the global-local semiotic assemblages for the production and consumption of a contested and unpredictable virtual landscape. While ‘glocality’ is a by-product of an on-going sociolinguistics of globalization, and that the local remains an active partner in the (co-)creation of glocality, the paper sees the virtual platform as a semiotic canvas on which indiv…
Multilingual Realities of Language Contact at the University of Zambia
In this article, we examine the multilingual realities of language contact at the University of Zambia. Using an ethnographic research design, we observe the dynamics of the students' language practices both in the physical and on the online landscape. As our locus, we use a physical conversation and Facebook narratives in which students drew on English and Bemba to illustrate instances of blending and mixing as multilingual practices arising fro…
Indigenous Languages in an Online Space: Translanguaging for Visibilisation of Multilingualism and Multisemiotic Modes
Drawing on the notion of translanguaging, we show how Facebook actors enact and sustain the use of a variety of Zambia’s indigenous languages alongside the English language. We conceive of Facebook as an online semiotic/linguistic landscape that occasions opportunities for language display through status updates and subsequent comments that draw on English and selected Zambian indigenous languages (Tonga, Bemba, and Nyanja) in the most unpredicta…
Communicative Practices from the Margins: The Multilingual and Multicultural Repertoires on University Spaces
We draw from the meaning-making practices on the margins, the communicative repertoires of the multilingual and multicultural students at two Southern African universities: the University of Zambia in Lusaka, Zambia; and the University of Malawi in Zomba, Malawi. As our locus, we are interested in the unique linguistic/semiotic coinages which constitute the students' linguistic repertoires as multilingual innovations amenable to placemaking. In a…
Sentential and proverbial morphological structures of Christian theonyms in Bemba
Drawing on Bemba, a Bantu language primarily spoken in northern Zambia, we interrogate the Christian theonyms to account for their complex morphological structures, while highlighting the wealth of information on the Bemba society and their sociocultural environment. For data, semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, and document analysis were employed. Thus, the article highlights two morphological structures, one being a sentential …
The names of the supreme being in Bemba: Some critical morphological insights
In this article, we use lexical morphology to account for names of the supreme being in Bemba, a Bantu language spoken in Zambia as rendered by various translators in the Christian holy book, the Bible. Motivated by the agglutinative nature of the Bemba language in which lexical items are built out of distinctly identifiable sub-parts carrying specific meanings and functions, we segment morphemes of theonyms to unravel their meanings that are cou…
Legitimization and recontextualization of languages: The imbalance of powers in a multilingual landscape
We use the uneven distribution of languages in the public spaces of the University of Zambia and the voices and narratives that emerge to argue for legitimization and recontextualization as critical components in the presence and contestations of languages. Using data from interviews and photographs of signage in place, we show legitimization of foreign languages in which English, Japanese, and Chinese forge a place of linguistic contestation and…
Social media discourses as multimodal assemblages
The social semiotics of Mambwe clan names and praises
The study explores the clan names and praises of the Mambwe-speaking people of Northern Zambia from a social semiotics perspective. Specifically drawing on the concept of semiotic assemblages, it considers the names and praises as more than just linguistic resources but as meaning-making collections that contribute to the collective self-representation of the Mambwe people. The assembled expressions reflect their worldviews, sociocultural narrati…
Campus repertoires: Interrogating Semiotic Assemblages, Economy, and Creativity
Framed within the broader theoretical context of social semiotics, we attempt to show how university students communicate using a variety of unique means, in particular social contexts. We privilege Pennycook and Otsuji's semiotic assemblages, Jimaima and Simungala's semiotic creativity, and the notion of semiotic economy as critical ingredients that conspire to give rise to the unique and complex coinages and innovations constituting students' r…
The Resemiotisation and Intertextuality of Multimodal Discourses in Linguistic Landscape of Public Service Vehicles in Lusaka, Zambia
Using resemiotisation and intertextuality as analytical tools in the broader theoretical conexts of linguistic landscapes and semiotic studies, this article accounts for the diverse and heavily saturated multimodal discourses emplaced on public service vehicles in Lusaka, Zambia (South-Central Africa). As its locus, the study wishes to to unearth the textual and sociocultural sources of emplaced discourses privileging local materialities, agency,…
Social Media as an Online Linguistic Landscape: An Appraisal of Lexical Creativity During a Global Pandemic
In this paper, we examine the Facebook platform as an online linguistic landscape that allows for language display rarely seen in physical spaces to showcase social media users’ lexical creativity and innovation. Using the period of the Covid-19 global pandemic, we show social media users’ lexical creativity and innovation in online discourses. Predicated on two interlinked objectives, we first attempt to account for the form and structure of lex…
Translanguaging spaces as marketing strategies in the linguistic landscapes of Zambia
We use advertising billboards and posters of three mobile telecom giants to spotlight translanguaging spaces as marketing strategies in the multilingual and multicultural landscapes of Zambia (south-central Africa). We argue that telecommunications giants deploy, in their marketing discourses, an assemblage of various semiotic resources on translanguaging spaces. Consequently, we show that this occasions a breakdown of language ideologies and blu…
Linguistic Landscapes and Dominant Language Constellations: The Multilingual Behaviour of Minoritised Migrant Populations in Lusaka, Zambia
Within the broader theoretical and methodological contexts of linguistic landscapes, where language(s) displayed and used in public spaces serve as analytic lenses, this paper draws on the public spaces of Bauleni township, a peri-urban community of Lusaka, Zambia (South-Central Africa) to describe the multilingual behaviour of migrant populations. Focusing on the presence (and visibility) of Mambwe-Namwanga, two minoritised language groups in Za…
Names of public memory spaces as sites of coloniality, cultural erasure, and downscaling in linguistic landscapes of Northern Zambia
Monuments in linguistic landscapes and the semiotics of public memory in northern Zambia
This study interrogates the Mbala War Memorial, a monument erected to commemorate the role of Africans in the First World War in northern Zambia. It explores how visible language, space, location, and monument design communicate deeper and often unspoken meanings about spaces of public memory. From this vantage point, monuments in linguistic landscapes can be examined to uncover underlying power dynamics that influence public memory. Thus, the st…
Linguistics (14 works) · Sociology (14 works) · Multilingual Education and Policy (12 works) · Second Language Learning and Teaching (8 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · Multilingualism (6 works) · Political science (6 works) · Semiotics (6 works) · Anthropology (5 works)