Rats Fell from the Ceiling and Pestered Me
” Phrase Books as Sources for Colonial Mozambican History
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9403468 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Kathleen Sheldon (0000-0001-9740-0999, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1998 |
| Volume | 25 |
| Pages | 341-360 |
| Publication date | 1998-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | History in Africa (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0361-5413 • E-ISSN: 1558-2744 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/3172193 |
| OpenAlex | W2038721217 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 5 |
Conversation manuals and phrase books offer a window into the worldview of those who compile them, and might provide clues about society at large as well. Because they focus on ordinary conversation and verbal interactions, the inclusion of particular topics and sentences indicates what issues were important to the person who compiled the phrase book and might furnish information about everyday life at the time of publication. Information may be gleaned not only from the actual phrases, but from the organization of the book, verb forms, and other less obvious indicators. Contemporary examples include phrase books in the United States that present basic terms related to housekeeping or construction for English-speakers who hire Spanish-speaking workers. Another example is from Joseph Lelyveld, who found the apt title for his book Move Your Shadow: South Africa, Black and White , in a Fanagalo phrase book. The excerpt “Move your shadow” was part of a set of orders for white golfers to use with African caddies, and was emblematic of white attitudes toward blacks during the apartheid era. In this paper I look at the kind of social and historical information that can be extracted from phrase books compiled during the colonial era in Mozambique. Phrase books differ from dictionaries and grammars because they provide an idiosyncratic list of topics and sentences deemed important to daily life by the compiler
Colonialism · Conversation · Linguistics · Phrase · Political science · Politics · Shadow (psychology · White (mutation · African history and culture studies · Computer Science · History · Law · Psychology · Artificial Intelligence
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0.36 |
| Citation span | 2012 - 2024 (13) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |