International Journal of Language & Linguistics

Space, Spanish and Toponymy in Cameroonian Literary Discourse
Onana Atouba Pierre Paulin

Résumé
This study tackles Cameroonian literary discourse in Spanish as artificial space dominated neither by exogenic languages nor by those that are originally indigenous to Cameroon, but by an exoglossic linguistic code. It is tantamount to the conquest of a new space by means of a vehicle from a different cultural world. Spanish confers a paratopic status on Cameroonian writing. Though not widely known, it carves out for itself a micro-literary niche in Cameroon’s overall literary production landscape. The textual space thus becomes an expressive forum for the periphery as against the centre. By means of the linguistic signs used, it defines its stenography and the author’s own space. Through specialization and localization, Cameroon literature in Spanish is able to function as veritable topographic and toponymic reproduction of physical space, that is, in more concrete terms, Cameroonian space.

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