Migration in the Bamenda Grassfield Region of Cameroon: Vector of Linguistic Interference in the Language of Civil Engineering

Abstract

Brettell and Hollifield (2019) posit that over the years, migration has attracted the interest of scholars from different areas of study. Among these scholars are linguists who examine how the interface between regional affiliation and ethnicity generates novel patterns in language variation and restructuring.This paper looks at migration in the Bamenda Grassfield Region of Cameroon as an antecedent to linguistic interference in civil engineering where a considerable stock of terms in common use is in French. The framework of the study hinges on Lenz’s Subsratum Theory which is a paradigm that explains issues related to Languages in Contact and their attendant consequences. Answers from research questions revealed that when job-seeking youths from the Bamenda Grassfield migrate to towns like Yaoundé and Douala, they get in contact with French and pick up some of its lexical items as a way of developing a functional vocabulary. As returning migrants, these youths use acquired civil engineering terms in French as a result of habit, nostalgia and the necessity to fill linguistic gaps.The study revealed that the dexterity shown in the use of French terms did not match the ability in providing equivalent English renderings. By extension, the observed phenomenon was equally blamed on the inadequate impetus and orientation that had been given to technical education in the Bamenda Grassfield Area   and in the Anglophone Sub-System of education as a whole.It is hoped that this paper will draw attention to the need for equity in the status of English and French in all domains of life in Cameroon.