Idiomatic Formation in Cameroon English Creative Writing

Abstract

This paper examines the various processes via which novel idiomatic expressions are created in Cameroon English creative writing. The expressions, drawn from fifteen literary works of seven Cameroonian novelists, are classified into three major categories: expressions obtained via the translation of home language and Popular French expressions; locally coined expressions and the expressions obtained via the modification of Standard British English (henceforth SBrE) expressions. The last category includes three subcategories, namely the expressions obtained via the substitution of lexes in SBrE expressions; those obtained via the deletion or addition of lexes in SBrE expressions; and the  expressions obtained either both via the substitution and addition or through the substitution, addition and deletion of some lexes in SBrE expressions.  It is argued in the paper that a good understanding of these novel expressions is conditioned by the readers’ familiarity to some linguistic and extralinguistic factors found in the Cameroonian sociocultural environment.