**2. Theoretical framework**

Being a multidisciplinary study involving the fields of Journalism and Linguistics, this paper makes use of two theories. The Social Responsibility Theory (SRT) by [4] is used in line with the journalism aspect of the study while the Communicative Competence Theory (CCT) by [5] will be used in line with the linguistic aspect of the discourse.

Even though politically motivated, SRT was developed as a result of the impracticality of individual media experts and tried to bond them in the service of cultural diversity even though it knowingly acknowledged the fact that the strategy might reduce their profits. In line with this paper, it will be used to present what the journalists need to consider as social obligation to the community they intend to inform before sending across their message. These obligations should avoid the promotion of crime, disunity, instability and violence. It rather guides them on issues of accountability, truth, accuracy, objectivity, and balance especially when they make use of the languages involved in the broadcasting process.

The term Communicative Competence was adopted by Dell Hymes. He defined communicative competence not only in line with Chomsky's essential grammatical competence but also as the ability to use this competence in various communicative (society) situations. There are three models under this theory.

They are the models of [6–8], and the description of components of communicative language competence in [9].

In this paper, these models are used to address sociolinguistic and pragmatic issues related to multilingual broadcasting. The role of linguistic or grammatical competence is used to look at the effectiveness of translation messages into other languages and the effect it has on the community. Also, Bachman and Palmer's goal setting, assessment and planning strategies are used.

## **3. Results**

A mixed method of data collection and analysis was used. This mixed method has to do with the use of qualitative and quantitative approaches. The quantitative part of the data collection made use of 118 questionnaires (100 for the radio audience and 18 for the radio staff), while the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) is used to analyze the data collected. The qualitative data were collected through the use of "conversational" interviews with the radio staffs and 2 focus group discussions. They were analyzed using Content Analysis. All of these will be done based on [10].

The adoption of multilingual broadcasting in a rural community like Kumbo warrants motivations. In order to comprehend this, the radio staff were asked to present these reasons. As seen on the frequency table and pie chart below (**Table 1** and **Figure 1**), two reasons (with equal representation), the possibility of getting a


#### **Table 1.**

*Reasons for using multilingual broadcasting.*

**Figure 1.** *Reasons for using multilingual broadcasting.*

larger audience and the presence of a multilingual audience were seen as the main reasons for this adoption with a 22.2% (4 respondents) response rate, while the need to provide firsthand information, educate, inform the people and boost their culture all came in second place with an 11.1% (2 respondents) response rate per response.

To know whether multilingual broadcasting was used by these radios, the participants were asked two questions (one from the questionnaire administered to the staffs) and (one from the questionnaire administered to the audience) to identify the languages used by these radio houses during multilingual broadcasting.

Since the staff make use of these languages, it was imperative that they give the total number of languages they use during broadcasting. On **Table 2**, the results


#### *Multilingual Broadcasting Practice by Rural Radios in Kumbo, Cameroon DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.99918*

**Table 2.**

*Radio staff identification of languages used during broadcasting in their respective radio stations.*


#### **Table 3.**

*Audience identification of the number of languages used during multilingual broadcasting.*

clearly present the number of languages used during multilingual broadcasting by each radio house. From the data collected, it was discovered that all four radio houses make use of eight languages. These languages are; Noni, Fulfulde, Lamnso, English, Limbum, French, Oku, and Pidgin.

To achieve a balance as to the number of languages used during multilingual broadcasting, the audience was asked to identify the languages they hear when they listen to the radio during broadcasting.

We discover however in **Table 3** that the audience identifies the use of ten languages during broadcast. We also discover that the number of languages identified by the audience is not specific, but varies per participant. For the purpose of the study, we will limit ourselves to the eight languages identified by the radio staff due to their frequencies of identification. This variation ranges from the use of 2 languages up to the use of 10 languages.

As a follow-up to this question, the audience was asked in another question to present these languages as seen below.

In total, 10 languages (Lamnso which was identified in all 100 questionnaires, followed by English which was chosen by 95 participants, French by 84, Oku by 60, Fulfulde by 56, Limbum by 33, Noni by 27, Pidgin and Hausa by 24 and Kom by 6) were identified.

Based on the data presented on **Figure 2**, we discover that there is an unequal representation of some languages as compared to others. With this in mind, we asked how these languages, are managed by these radio stations and the following results were achieved.

From **Table 4**, it is clear that these languages are used in different situations by the various radio stations. Also, it can be observed that some of these languages seem to be used more extensively than others. From the statistics above, it is clearly seen that there is a greater use of certain languages during broadcasting as

**Figure 2.** *Audience language identification during broadcasting as used by the radio stations.*


*( ) represents Radio Evangelium, ( ) represents City Community Radio, ( ) represents Helen Kris Radio, and ( ) represents Bui Community Radio. Where there is a (O), it signifies the absence of the use of a particular language by all four radio stations. Also, there are situations where you have just two languages two or even one language used in a domain by the radio stations such as the case of Noni, Fulfulde and Oku Languages which are not really used by radio stations in all the domains at some point in time as are the cases with languages like Lamnso, English and French.*

#### **Table 4.**

*Frequency of language use per program by the radio stations in Kumbo.*

#### *Multilingual Broadcasting Practice by Rural Radios in Kumbo, Cameroon DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.99918*

compared to others. These allocations given to these languages are justified by the radio staff in the data collected with the use of "conversational" interviews.

There is a high use of Lamnso (present in all 6 slots by all the radio stations) as compared to the other languages. This is followed by English Language, which is considered as the appropriate language of exchange between the working class and the students, who make up the bulk of listeners per radio. This language also runs relay programs like 'Luncheon Date', 'Cameroon Calling' and 'Cameroon this Morning' from the main national radio station, CRTV. The other native languages have programs run in their languages by these radio stations. These programs are centered religious issues and "partial" cultural awareness issues. As for French, it is considered less active and it is only used when the information to be broadcast is paid for by those who wish to send across the information. It is used during news broadcast by all four radio stations because they relay the news from CRTV.

The radio houses in Kumbo have gone the extra mile to try to provide the information needed by these communities. However, with such representation of language use, there is obviously a clear revelation of language marginalization which is seen in how they are used and the justifications presented by the media staff. There is limitation as to the amount of information provided during broadcast to satisfy these communities whose languages are marginalized during broadcast [11]. May be with more financial sources to manage issues such as payment of staff and funds for constant maintenance of equipment, they may be able to allocate equal functions to the languages used during broadcasting.

During programs, there are also issues of language use in that there are programs that are: (1) Monolingual (cultural program). These programs are presented strictly in one language like Lamnso. "Lan e wong Nso" is an example of such programs. (2) Multilingual (adverts, entertainment) which run with the use of more than one language per episode. They include programs like "salut ya neighbor".. (3) Others which make use of more than one language (news, publicity, adverts, education, religion), in different episodes of the programs.

There are monolingual programs that run in different languages per episode. Just like what was got from the answers from the respondents from the radio stations, programs that are important to the communities in general are multilingual while those that are considered "less important" to the general audience are monolingual. That is why instead of looking at balancing air-time between African and European languages [12] ways should rather be employed into looking at how these native languages can be balanced during broadcasting. A wide variety of the respondents believe that African languages cannot carry discussion of all topics. Interestingly studies like [12] show that "African languages can be used to discuss all possible subjects". Other reasons to the equal use of these languages are to promote and develop them. The implication of this is that if correct measures are taken, these languages can be developed and more widely used such that the inevitable array of advantages of multilingualism is benefitted by the citizens of this community.

To determine the effects of multilingual broadcasting, we will first look at audience program preferences because whatever effect they portray is as a result of the kind of programs they listen to. Question 14, Section 3, on the questionnaire administered to the radio audience asked the audience about their favorite programs on each of the four radio stations used in this study. The following results were obtained.

Out of the 100 participants who were administered questionnaires, we had 6 respondents who did not respond to this question and 1 respondent, who did not love any of the programs on BCR. Out of the remaining 93 participants, 31 enjoy listening to newscasts, 21 to culture, 14 to entertainment and 10 to educative


#### **Table 5.**

*Audience program choice for BCR.*

programs. The love for other programs by the other respondents has a low interest rate because there are programs loved by 6 and less participants (**Table 5**).

As for program reference with regards to CCR, 14 out of the 100 participants who were administered questionnaires did not respond to this question. Out of the remaining 86 participants who responded to the question, 25 prefer entertainment, 16 prefer news, 13 prefer cultural programs, 11 prefer music while the remaining 21 records low program choice responses ranging from 7 to 1 (information, advertisement and interactive) per program (**Table 6**).

On Helen Kris radio, 91 out of the 100 who were administered questionnaires responded to the question while 9 respondents did not plus 2 other respondents who did not like any of the programs. Out of the 91 respondents, 23 enjoy entertainment, 18 enjoy news, 15 enjoy cultural programs, 10 enjoy music while the remaining 25 fall within the least loved programs with participants ranging from 6 to 1 (sports and information) per program (**Table 7**).

Out of the 100 questionnaires administered, 8 participants did not respond to the question leaving 92 respondents with program choices. 40 enjoy listening to Bible and religious matters, 10 enjoy Bible teaching, 9 enjoy prayers with 33 respondents left within the least loved programs.

Looking at the responses from the above question, we realize that the top response on each of the tables reflects each of the radio station's main objective of creation as was presented in chapter three of this study.

Having looked at program choices, we will now present the effects of multilingual broadcasting on the community (**Table 8**).

As presented on **Table 9**, 6 participants out of the 100 used for this study did not respond to this question. Out of the 94 participants who responded, 24 participants said they receive information from the radio that affects the smooth running of their communities since important information is shared during meetings.10 receive information on educative talks that affect them in terms of health, agriculture and academic issues while 14 said they have changed the way they do certain


### *Multilingual Broadcasting Practice by Rural Radios in Kumbo, Cameroon DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.99918*

#### **Table 6.**

*Audience program choice for CCR.*


#### **Table 7.**

*Audience program choice for Helen Kris.*

things because they listen to these radio stations. 8 said there is unity in their community because they receive information from these radio stations in languages they can easily understand. 5 participants said there is change in the way they do things because of multilingual broadcasting. 6 said there is peace in their
